News

Michelle Chamberlain and members of the Swanner lab recently presented at the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) in Madison, Wisconsin.

Dr. Mellata’s Lab recently shared their research at the Midwest Microbiome Symposium hosted at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr.

Caleb Skow and Logan C. Ott of Dr. Mellata’s lab recently published an article in Frontiers in Microbiology titled, “A defined microbiota mouse model for Salmonella Paratyphi A oral infection”. In this article, Dr.

Olmedo-Velarde Lab students Carter Casey and Kota Nakasato represented Iowa State University at the WERA-20 annual meeting, Management of Diseases Caused by Systemic Pathogens in Temperate and Sub-Tropical Fruit Crops and Woody Ornamentals

Iowa State University welcomed more than 7,000 students this week for the Iowa FFA Leadership Conference, and for a group of curious young leaders, the experience included a hands-on dive into the invisible world of microbes.

Students from the Interdepartmental Microbiology graduate program participated in the 4th Annual Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Symposium (IBSS 2026), held April 16, 2026, at the Memorial Union.

The 2026 Interdepartmental Microbiology Spring Retreat brought the IM community together on March 27 in Kildee Hall for an afternoon of scientific discussion, student research, and interdisciplinary connection!

Please join us in celebrating Dr. Marissa Roghair-Stroud on the successful defense of her doctoral dissertation. This is a major milestone, and we are proud to recognize her hard work and accomplishment.

Students from the Interdepartmental Microbiology graduate program recently attended the 13^th biannual All Iowa Virology Symposium, where they joined researchers from across the state for two days of scientific exchange and discussion fo

Binayak Raj Pandey, a third-year PhD student in Microbiology, got a fully funded travel award to present his research at the 2026 EPSCoR Annual Summit.

Have you ever wondered what concentration of molybdenum (Mo) limits nitrogen fixation? Zak Stevenson (Microbiology PhD ’24) studied Deming Lake, where Mo was barely detectable, and surprisingly, nitrogen fixation was not Mo-limited.

Congratulations to Puja Bajracharya, a PhD student in Dr.

Dr. Gwyn Beattie’s Lab published three new papers in 2025 spanning soil microbiome strategies for environmental benefits and new insights into the biology and epidemiology of bacteria linked to cucurbit yellow vine disease.

Dr. Dylan Schultz successfully defended his thesis on 11/21/25 titled, " Genotypic and phenotypic exploration of Cardinium hertigii-induced reproductive manipulation of Encarsia parasitoid wasps".

Mellata’s team recently published an article titled "Host Genetics Regulate Bacterial Plasmid Conjugation Differentially in Avian Ceca Explant Co-Culture Through Secretory miRNA" in the Nature Portfolio journal (npj) - Antimicrobi

Congratulations to Binayak Raj Pandey, a third-year Microbiology PhD student in Dr.

Zachary Burton recently published an article titled "Corrosion inhibition of an aluminum alloy by environmentally derived microbial biofilms" in Frontiers in Microbiomes.

Jessica Strathman recently published an article titled "Transcriptome Sequencing Reveals Distinct Stress Response of Listeria monocytogenes 6179 During Logarithmic and Stationary Growth Phases" in Microbiology Open. 

Dylan Schultz recently published an article which assembled and compared the genomes of different strains of the endosymbiotic bacteria Cardinium.